More of 'em..

yeah yeah still doing movies here... serious vegging but all good.. lessee.

Saw "Lemony Snicket" - haven't read the books yet. Many Harry Potter fans read Lemony to fill in time between HP releases. The next HP book and the last is due out next year. According to the author JK Rowling's diary, her kids do quite take up her time.... Anyways, back to the movie.. I like the editing and background but the famous actors were too distracting (meryl streep, dustin hoffman to name a few). Only ones I really like were that guy from Monty Python (not john cleese - not eric idle..damn!) and james carrey acceptable as Lemony. I hated him as the Grinch.

Battlestar Galactica - once again human nature dominates. Black market versus attempted utopia/democracy. Some things you can turn a blind eye on whereas the other eye is always checking in ensuring the black market is under the radar and nobody gets too greedy. Saw sneak peek for this Friday's episode.. Starbuck and Helo are back. yay!

Nearly finished with "Lilith's Brood".. On the last book now, Imago. It's pretty addictive - it's nice in small doses in comparison with HP when you want it all NOW. You're up all night trying to squeeze in with 'one more chapter' with a bleary eye getting all the details in - what is snape up to? What kind of cuddly monster has hagrid gotten tangled up with? What's petunia doing retaining all the knowledge after so many years repressing it? Is she the Secret Keeper? etc etc etc etc etc. It can be exhausting and Lilith's Brood is nice and comfortable.

I have "Dark Crystal" up next.. Haven't seen it since I was a kid.. Might be a shock after quite few years with ultra smooth CGI (shrek) and crappy CGI (the start wars trilogy prequels). A batch of oldies will be coming in soon.. I was in a particular mood when I chose the movies on Netflix (labyrinth, pollyana, puff the magic dragon, the neverending story)...

Henson, we miss you!

Movies, movies,movies, and a Book

Been vegging much of late the last few weeks with the new job... I arrive home exhausted and ready to plug myself into the good ol' boob tube. A number of "Law & Order" and some SVU and CI to name a few.. and reading "Lilith's Brood" by Octavia Butler late into night (now on the second book, 'Adulthood Rites'). Will post a review once I've finished the book. A really great read.

Movies

Mr. and Mrs. Smith - a proper action movie with a marriage twist. A fun movie to watch especially a well publicized romance between Jolie and Pitt. There were few moments where I thought I saw restrained affection between the two.

Dark Water - a ghostie story and *SPOILERALERTSPOILERALERT* this is where the ghostie wins.. It was a real kick watching the movie because it was shot on Roosevelt Island, a tiny sliver of land between Manhattan and Queens. You can walk from one side to the other in few minutes and an even longer walk maybe 15 minutes north from southern tip of island. I used to go and work there every month the last three years. The low income housing and the school looked very welcoming.. Jennifer Connelly walked the same streets as I did. I recognized many fixtures. There's a lighthouse on the northern tip of the island in a park. Spring be coming in few months and the island is very lovely with dogwood and blossom trees at the time of the year..

The Triplets of Belleville - a very dark French cartoon movie. It did test my tolerance for absurdity.. the way the French bikers competing for Ridor's favorite Lance Armstrong event with overlarge thighs and calves, narrow bodies and hypnotic gaze. The dog barking at the passing trains and being used as a spare when a wheel couldn't be found.. the Triplets and their frogs *shudder* really carries the French and their frog eating stereotype far. I couldn't decide whether I liked the movie or not. I think you have to be in a certain mood to watch it and I have no sense of humor in how pets were portrayed.. It's pretty cool for deafies.. It's mostly instrumental music with very few dialogue. It's a pictorial story and pretty easy to follow.

I'm all tingle.. Will be watching an encore of "Battlestar" soon tonight. I missed it on Friday. The one I saw last week was okay. It has a very convenient ending.. The other Number Six cylon, the flesh and blood Gina killed Admiral Cain instead of Starbuck. At the end of the show, the camera panned to Petty Officer Dualla who was listening into Starbuck and Lee Adama's conversation. My sister, also an avid Battlestar fan thinks Dualla is a Cylon.

Speaking of Cylons.. there seems to be a group who have infiltrated and joined the good side.. Tonight's encore is about Cylon sympathizers and Cylon Sharon pregnant with Helo's (this was before he discovered she was a Cylon) baby. a Hybrid baby with potential healing (think stem cell research).

Not much distinction between Sci-Fi and the real thing.. It's all about the storytelling, my friend.

Alexander

Watching parts of the movie on HBO. I've seen Colin Farrell in other movies but this has to be his worst one. When Alexander is angry, yelling at troops, or trying to boost morale - he looks like he's ready to cry or is really, really hungover. During production of the movie, stories of Colin's all nighters in a bar, getting few hours sleep and be ready to work the next day became legendary (or so according to In Touch - I'm addicted to the rag and I like their two levels of Su Doku)..

Battlestar Galactica Mid Season 2

Saw first 11 minutes of tonight's encore show so far... How did I get by the last few months without "Battlestar"??? It's a breath of fresh air. I'm intoxicated. *swoon*

kickass story and characters. no disappointments. *eyes misting over*

additional note:

Adama and Cain - you could see the rift at the end of first half of season 2 once their ideological and tactical approach in the war with the Cylons were obvious. Earlier, Adama put President Rosyln and his own son captain Adama under house arrest when the president (who was suffering from messiah delusion induced by cancer) and Lee Adama tried to stage a coup. Naturally, Adama and the president eventually found reasoning and things resumed as usual. It took a while for Adama and Lee to reconcile.

Admiral Cain whose fleet was missing since the Cylon attack had re appeared. Over time it became evident that Cain was ruthless and made harsh decisions in the name of war. One of the most shocking moments of the series where they visited each other's Cylon (clone) prisoners - for Galactica, Sharon and for Cain's fleet - a copy of Number Six (Gaius' imaginary girlfriend), Gina. The two Sharons had established relationships with Tyrol and Helo (the first Sharon was a sleeper who attacked Adama and was killed in her efforts) and since she cooperated (after some initial suspicion and harassment by the crew) Sharon provided useful information about the Cylons. She had clothes and a comfortable prison cell and received limited visits. Gaius, the scientist who worked with Sharon, was stunned to see Gina when he visited her cell in Cain's ship. She was nearly naked, very scarred and bruised, and wore an iron collar chained to the cement floor. Gina suffered from extreme trauma and appeared catatonic.

Cain decided that the personnel were to be reassigned and switched some crew members. Cain's men bragged to Helo and Tyrol about taking turns having a go on Gina and once Tyrol and Helo discovered that Cain's XO usually participated in torture and was due to visit, they ran off to look for her. They found XO with his pants down and Sharon restrained by troops. They threw him off her and the XO had the misfortune of hitting his head into a screw bolt on the wall. The XO died instantly and Cain ordered immediate executions of two men. Commander Adama tried to interfere as he knew they were trying to help Sharon and he opposed Cain's methods to extract information from prisoners. Cain turned a deaf ear at Adama's protests and said it must be done. It was the cliffhanger last fall and now I got to see what happened once the series returned to start the second half of the season. Hot Damn!

Cain - when I first saw her, I was elated. A no-nonsense Admiral who happened to be a woman. Both men and women soldiers called their female superiors (including Starbucks) 'sir'. Not 'ma'am' or 'miss'. Now at last Friday's mid season premiere and Monday night's encore we discover that there is more about Cain than meets the eye. She has the similar mantra like Bush and Cheney, most especially about torture and soldiers - "We are at war" and an unapologetically "collateral damage".

I love this show!!!

Books..

'Tis winter - the season of reading. I like reading in summer also, but it's near impossible to do it outdoors here in New York. Too distracting.

I'm currently reading Maureen Dowd's "Are Men Necessary?" and next up, "Lilith's Brood" by Octavia E. Bulter. A friend who's a fellow sci-fi reader (more him than me, actually) recommended the trilogy (a complete series: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) .. and it's written by a black woman.. A nice change of the genre so dominated by white men.

I was browsing through Amazon.com and found "Deaf People in Hitler's Europe". Only one left in stock and something told me I should buy it now than later. I took the class at Gally in '99 and it included a trip to Budapest, Krakow and Prague. The trip was postponed a year later due to political instability in the Balkans. Didn't get a chance to go. Oh well. The class was very educational and added something new to the already dried up and redundant WWII studies. Anyways I'm very happy to report that I clicked the "add to cart" icon, it'll soon be part of my growing collection of Deaf Literature.